Your brand is a reflection of who you are – your identity, your personality, your promise. Your brand reflects your purpose and values.
Your business’s values are not necessarily those on your website or glossy brochures. Your real values are the “what” you do every day, and the “how” you service your customers. It is reflected in how your customers feel when they deal with your business.
Your brand becomes trusted when you fulfil your promise to your customers. Conversely, when you do not live up to your promise your brand becomes distrusted.
In a crowded market place your brand is an opportunity to be unique and different. Think about how you want your customers to feel when they deal with you, what is your customer’s experience?
For example, Q2’s values are:
- Collaboration – being better than the sum of the parts
- Innovation – creative thinking
- Initiative – being proactive
- Excellence – being our best every day
- Nurturing – people and businesses
My team and I must live these values every day to deliver on Q2’s brand promise.
Every successful business must develop a trusted brand. Your brand becomes trusted when your customer’s experience meets their expectations.
The good news is you don’t need a large marketing budget to develop a trusted brand. But you do need clarity about your business purpose, target market and shared values, as well as commitment to consistently deliver on your brand’s promise.
“A brand is what people say about us when we are not in the room” – Jeff Bezos, Amazon